“The purpose- where I
start- is the idea of use. It is not recycling, its reuse.”-Issey Miyake
I
like making wine. Let me restate that, I love making wine! I love growing the
fruit, harvesting the fruit, adding sugar and yeast to ferment with the fruit,
racking and tasting the wine as it ferments, ages, and finally reaches the
desirable taste to be bottled.
The
most expensive item in bottling wine is the cost of the wine bottles. Brand-new
wine bottles cost about $15 for a dozen bottles, which works out to $1.25 per
bottle. Obviously, I reuse my own wine bottles, as well as have a couple of
friends who save bottles for me to help cut down on the cost of making homemade
wine. Reusing wine bottles just makes sense. It is part of a basic frugal and
simple living plan, which allows me to live well on my budget. My basic
financial plan is to spend less money than I make in salary, which sometimes is
easier said than done.
I make about 220-300 bottles of wine yearly,
so I use quite a bit of bottles. I have often picked up extra empty bottles of
wine from a local restaurant, but I also have received hundreds of bottles from
local wineries for free by simply asking for them. Most wineries do not reuse
their wine bottles; instead they choose to purchase new ones, so I tote them
home to clean them. It is not difficult to clean wine bottles, but it does take
quite a bit of time and elbow grease; which is probably why the wineries choose
to purchase new bottles instead of reusing them.
First, I remove the
foil found around the neck of the wine bottle and then soak the bottle in hot
soapy water. After about 45 minutes of soaking, I use a razor blade to scrape
off the wine label. I then put the bottle into my dishwasher and then store into
boxes after it has completely dried. When I get ready to use the bottles I
rewash them in hot soapy water and sterilize them by boiling them in hot water with a bit of bleach. Make sure
to let the bottles cool to room temperature before filling with wine.
Besides saving quite a
bit of cash by reusing wine bottles, I feel like I am being environmentally
helpful by cutting down on waste. I hope this post inspires you to seek out
ways to reuse, recycle, or repurpose materials instead of buying new items as
you develop thrifty habits.
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